The Things We Keep
by MagicalGirlHell
Summary: (Formerly To Slip Away) Fixated on his brother's last words, Thor scours the universe in search of him. Loki has left Thor one last puzzle - if he can just figure it out, he can get his brother back. He knows it.
1. ad nauseum

Afterward, Natasha was almost embarrassed to admit she remembered nearly nothing of the moments after it happened. Just flashes.

Steve on his knees, his expression void of comprehension.

Okoye shaken, horrified.

"Not even a goddamn twig left," the raccoon had said, "Not a goddamn twig."

Bruce screaming — had she ever heard him sound like that, so full of rage and pain? Where was the Hulk? — _"No, no, no!"_

(Thor walked over and pulled the suit apart with his bare hands so that Bruce could stumble out of it and stagger to the ground. She couldn't see his face.)

A whir of machinery. A hand on her shoulder. Metal. _Tony?_ she almost said. Instinct.

"What happened?" Rhodey asked. "I don't — where — what just happened?"

"Half of all life in the universe," said Thor, his voice suddenly the only real thing in the world. "Gone."

Gone. Just like that.

( _Snap_.)

o

When they got back to the city, everyone was still varying levels of shocked or freaking out. The first thing Natasha did was find a phone and call Clint.

And Nick.

And Clint.

And Maria.

And Clint.

And Clint.

And Clint.

(She dialed Pepper's number. Natasha Romanov thought of herself as a brave person, but she still couldn't make herself hit _send_. Not with the TV, muted on the other side of the room, rudely reminding them all _"Tony Stark still missing."_ )

She called Clint again.

Some time after dark, the Bifrost cut a brilliant slice out of the night as Thor returned (when had he left?) with Clint Barton tucked under one arm.

"They're gone, Nat," Clint said to her. "They're all gone."

o

Later, the god asked her quietly for some paper and something to write with. She found him a spiral-bound notebook and a ballpoint pen. It seemed like such a small price to pay for answered prayers.

o

He seemed okay. It never occurred to her that he shouldn't be.

"Hey," said Bruce to her, a little later.

"Hey," she said, smiling shallowly at him. She hadn't seen as much of him as she would have liked. The Avengers occupied a handful of guest rooms clustered around a shared parlor, where he and Clint had been mostly just sitting and moping and drinking (where had he picked up that habit?) People kept asking her to do things, because she had bounced back quicker than most of the others. It was fine. It was better to keep moving, keep busy.

This was horrible, but she'd seen horrible before.

( _"Where is Iron Man?"_ a newspaper lying on a table nearby asked.)

"Have you seen Thor around?" he asked.

She shook her head. Thor was someone else who kept moving, kept busy.

"I hope he's okay," Bruce said.

She thought of that, later that night, when she found Thor sitting alone at the table in the parlor, scarfing down takeout and scribbling in the notebook she'd given him.

"Mind some company?" she asked him.

He started at her voice, but smiled up at her. "Never," he said.

She covertly snuck a look at the page, but then thought, why hide it? Thor wasn't really one for secrets, was he?

"What are you working on?" she asked him.

"Ah—" he said. He hesitated, but it wasn't a none-of-your-business sort of hesitation, or even a this-is-embarrassing sort. It was a do-you-really-want-to-listen-to-more-bad-news sort of hesitation; all too familiar these days. He tipped the notebook toward her to reveal a list in his neat, runic script. "When Thanos attacked our ship, he killed half of its passengers. I have been returning there, to see that the dead receive a proper burial."

She stared at the list. "Are those names?"

He nodded.

"You know all of their names?"

"I am their king," he said, as if it were simple.

"Their families—" he started, but stopped. "Anyone who's left will want to know for certain of their fates. I don't yet know where the other half are, but I was taking them to Earth when—" his voice broke, and he cleared his throat and continued as if nothing was wrong, "So surely this is where they will come, if they can." He nodded.

Natasha wondered if the Asgardians' slaughter when Thanos retrieved the Tesseract had saved them from the culling that came later. She hoped so. Small mercies.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" she asked him.

The smile he gave her was strange but familiar — the tilt of his head, the quirk of his eyebrows. "Can you teleport and survive in a vacuum?" he asked her, gently teasing.

She smiled back apologetically. "Sorry."

He nodded. "Unfortunate," he said, "But I thank you. I could use another pen soon, perhaps."

They spent the rest of the meal in companionable silence, and when he got up to leave, he kissed the top of her head.

Natasha should have known better than to be surprised that Thor Odinson, King of Asgard, could remember the name of every single one of his subjects after an event that had reduced those subjects to the contents of a single space-faring vessel.

 _King of Asgard._

Regimes fell every day, she reminded herself.

With no one around to hear it, she wept anyway.

o

Natasha staggered to the kitchen in Avengers Tower for her morning cup of coffee to find breakfast waiting for her.

"Lady Natasha!" Thor greeted her brightly. He didn't quite have a handle on Earth honorifics yet, but honestly it was kind of cute, so she didn't always correct him. "You're always up early, so I thought you might like some breakfast."

The stupid "Kiss the Cook" apron that Tony had furnished the kitchen with was so stupidly small on the beefy Asgardian, but it was the first time she'd been truly tempted to do as it asked. He set a plate before her.

She should have thanked him, but the sun had not yet risen, and she could barely make coherent thoughts, much less sentences. Instead, she asked, "What's this?"

He poured her a cup of coffee, because Thor was a god that answered prayers, apparently.

"I wanted to learn to read and write your language," he said to her, "So I started with the books in the kitchen."

She choked. "You learned English by reading cookbooks?"

"Jarvis helped me get through the first few," he said, as if that made it any less impressive.

The eggs were cooked the way she liked them. At the time, she had thought that maybe he had a crush on her (which was conflicting, because by that point she was already starting to Feel Things about Bruce.) Eventually she determined that he was just the sort of guy that noticed little things.

(Much later, she would come to understand that he made an effort to notice little things. There were important things, he admitted to her, that had slipped by his notice, before. Things that had seemed little, at the time.)

"Can I ask a favor?" he said. He was putting food on another plate, but not for himself.

For a breakfast like that, he could have asked her for a pint of blood. "Sure," she said.

"When you've got a moment, could you take this down to Stark's workshop? He won't let me in but I have a feeling a locked door won't be a problem for you." He winked at her. Tony insisted he was afraid Thor would short out his equipment. Natasha suspected he thought the Asgardian was just dumb. Irritatingly, Tony wasn't often wrong. She looked forward to the day this particular egregious misconception bit him in the ass.

"That's thoughtful," she said, sipping her coffee.

"He's been locked in there all night, tinkering. He'll forget for days if no one feeds him. My br— I— I knew— someone else just like that."

o

That was what Natasha thought about, when she scrounged him up a few pens and went to his room to deliver them early the next morning. He was in the shower, and she left the pens on his nightstand next to the notebook.

Always the spy, she thought to herself, as she lifted the cover of it, out of curiosity. (It wasn't spying if it wasn't a secret, right? And it wasn't a secret. Thor had told her— he'd told her— he—)

Page after page of names. Page after page after page. Hundreds of names.

Just the names would have been bad enough, but it wasn't just the names.

 _The sun will shine on us again._

 _(Is that how he said it?)_

 _The sun will shine on Asgard again._ _(no)_

 _The sun will shine on_ _us_ _again._

 _The sun will shine on us again, brother._

 _"I promise"? "You'll see"? (can't remember)_

 _Ask Bruce?_ _Doesn't remember. Hulk?_

 _The sun_ _will_ _shine on us again._

 _The sun will shine on us again._

 _The sun will shine on us again._

 _The sun will shine on us again._

 _The sun will shine on us again._

 _The sun will shine on us again._

 _The sun will shine on us again._

 _The sun will shine on us again._

 _The sun will shine on us again._

 _The sun will shine on us again._

She flipped the pages, hand shaking. More names, and—

 _I, Loki, god of mischief_

 _I, Loki Odinson_

 _I, Loki,_ _king of Jotunheim_ _, God of Mischief, Odin's son_

 _Odinson_

 _I, Loki, heir of Jotunheim (?) (_ _would Bruce know?_ _No)_

 _I am Loki of Jotunheim_

 _"of Jotunheim" on Svartalfheim too before fake death_

 _I, Loki, heir of Jotunheim, God of Mischief, Odinson, do_ _hearby_ _hereby swear my undying fidelity_

 _I, Loki_

 _Heir of Jotunheim_

 _God of Mischief_

 _Odin's Son_

 _Undying Fidelity_

 _Undying_

 _Undying_

 _"You should choose your words more carefully"_

 _Loki always chooses his words carefully_

 _What does it mean_

 _What were you trying to tell me, brother?_

 _Where are you?_

 _Undying_

 _Where would he go?_

 _Vanaheim, mother's home?_ _No_

 _Alfheim? Uncle Frey?_ _not there either_

 _Knowhere_ _gone stupid Aether was there stupid stupid_

 _Valkyrie? Sakaar? (Not safe? Grandmaster?) Time dilation makes Bifrost travel impossible. Could Loki walk? (Can he, still? Hasn't since Convergence?)_

 _Heimdall I can't see_

 _Still at ship? Injured?_ _Find him_

 _Undying_

 _Undying_

 _Undying_

 _Undying_

 _The sun_ _will_ _shine on us again._

The sound of the shower turning off jerked Natasha back to reality. She put the notebook back in its place and fled.

o

When it started, Thor had tried to help out, only disappearing into the void every few days. And then he was gone almost every day.

It had been three days since the last time someone had seen him.

"I don't," Natasha said, alarmed at how her voice caught in her throat, "I don't think he's okay."

 _The sun will shine on us again._ Bruce had confirmed for her that these were the last words the Hulk had heard Loki speak to Thor. (At least, that sounded right. His memories as the Hulk were fuzzy at the best of times.)

All of them — all of the Avengers who were left, and the raccoon, Rocket — were sitting in the parlor, in couches around the low coffee table. Steve had the notebook in his hands and was turning the pages gently, a look of knowing sadness on his face.

Bruce sat with his face in his hands. "We all lost a lot," he said, "But Thor, Thor — his _whole world_ is gone. His whole family, his entire planet. Everything. Asgard — Thor's people — we saved them. Goddamn it, _we saved them_ , we got them on that stupid ship, and then Thanos just _blew the ship to hell_."

 _It's not fair_ , he didn't say, because words couldn't do it justice. The unfairness of it was overwhelming. That was what was eating Bruce. He'd helped — the Hulk had helped — and it had been for nothing. Natasha put her hand on the back of his head and ran her fingers through his hair. Had it always been so grey?

"Yeah," said Rhodey. "He's entitled to a little _not okay_."

 _He'll be okay, he's tough. Give him time,_ said Tony Stark's voice in her head, because he wasn't in the room to say it there. Tony Stark, who pretended things were fine when they weren't because he'd never been _fine_ a day in his life.

"He thinks Loki's still alive," Steve said, "He's looking for him."

Natasha knew what he was thinking — that if there was even the slightest chance that Barnes was still out there somewhere, Steve wouldn't give up either. But this wasn't just faith, it was obsession.

 _The sun will shine on us again._ Repeated, page after page of it far beyond the point of reason. _The sun will shine on us again._ Somehow, strangely comforting. An infectious spark of mad hope.

"Loki," said Rocket. "That's the dead brother, right?" He took the notebook from Steve's hands and flipped through it, then tossed it to the table in disgust. "Thor said he's been dead before. Who the hell are we to tell him to stop looking?"

o

He was back, the next day, and gone again the day after. Natasha couldn't shake the feeling that one day he wasn't going to come back. Slowly, slowly, he was slipping away from them.

o

In the end there was nothing they could think to do but let him be. One day Thor returned after nearly a week away looking battered but well, with a bottle of something blue-black he said was too strong for humans to handle. They drank it anyway.

"I've been on Sakaar," Thor told Bruce, nodding at the bottle, after he'd finished noting down his latest findings.

"No sign of Val?"

Thor shook his head. "I didn't really think they'd go back there anyway, but it was worth a try." He picked up the tumbler he was nursing and set it back down a few times, stamping out a triquetra in condensation on the chipboard back of the notebook. "I found Heimdall."

Bruce sighed. "God, Thor. I'm so sorry."

Thor nodded. "That's part of why I took so long, other than getting transport to Sakaar. That's it. The last of the bodies."

Natasha paused in the middle of a sip. In her peripheral vision, she saw Clint stop moving. All of them were quiet. All of them were paying attention, even Rocket (though the only sign of it was the perk of his ears.)

Thor licked his lips, picked up his glass, and drained it. And then he got up from the table and left the room, leaving the notebook behind.

None of them breathed.

Slowly, Natasha reached across the table and pulled it toward her. She flipped through slowly, page by page, until she found the last one, and let her eyes skim down to the end of the list.

Clint took it from her and flipped it shut.

He looked at Rocket. "There was an idea," he said. "Shit." By now, all of them knew Fury was gone. He looked at Steve and Natasha. "How did it go?"

"There was an idea called the Avengers Initiative," Natasha said, "To bring together a group of remarkable people."

"A team, to fight the battles nobody else could," said Steve.

Clint nodded. "Yeah," he said, and started: "Seven years ago, in a SHIELD bunker in New Mexico, a mad god fell, burning, out of a hole in space and stole an infinity stone. And that idea had to become reality real fast."


	2. across the universe

When pressed, Thor admitted that some of the bodies had been difficult to identify, but he still insisted that none of them had been his brother's.

They'd made a decision, when he'd left their little gathering that night.

Steve, Natasha, Clint, Thor, Bruce, Rhodey, Tony (wherever he was, _if_ he still _was_ ) — whatever they were, they were still the Avengers. Whatever they'd lost, they still had each other. None of them had to go it alone.

Win or lose, live or die. Together.

"You too," said Steve to Rocket. "You're here, you fought, you're one of us."

"Thanks," said the raccoon, "But I've got a team, if they ever get their asses here to pick me up." If they still lived, none of them said. They couldn't _all_ be gone.

They poured one last drink of way-too-strong alien booze.

"'Till the end of the line," Steve said, even though no one but Natasha understood the significance of the words.

They drank to it.

o

"No time for a break, huh?" said Steve, as Thor made his way out the door. He and Natasha were making the pretense of loitering, but they'd been waiting for him.

"Why?" Thor asked, "You're not tired, are you?" His smile was sincere, but it was stretched so, so thin.

"Where are you headed?"

"Alfheim," Thor said. "I took a brief detour there a little while back but I only stopped by the home of a relative. Now that my work at the ship is done, I must go to Ljosalfgard and speak to the Queen. If my people are anywhere in her realm, she will know it."

"I guess you don't need to teleport or survive in a vacuum to function there, hmm?" said Natasha.

Thor dropped the head of Stormbreaker to the floor and leaned on the handle. "You'd like to accompany me?"

"Come on," Natasha coaxed, "Bruce got an exciting space adventure. You're gonna leave the rest of us stuck on Earth?"

Thor chuckled. He looked between the two of them. "I'm all right, you know," he said. "It's been... taxing — for everyone, not just me — but I'm all right. You don't have to worry."

"Yeah," said Steve. "But we're still a team, right? Gotta look out for each other."

"Alfheim is a peaceful realm. Not much to look out for there," said Thor. He thought a moment. "Actually, you know what? I could use the company. Just you two?"

They nodded.

"I can only assume you're ready to go, then, since you were waiting for me," Thor said, brushing past them to walk out the door.

"So, uh... how does this work, exactly?" Steve asked, following behind him. "I mean do we have to like... hold on or anything?"

Thor smirked. "You can, if you get scared. I won't judge," he said, in a tone that implied that he absolutely _would_ judge.

Natasha reached out to take a fistful of his cape as she stepped up next to him. She wasn't scared, but she wasn't stupid either.

"We can't fall off of this thing, right?" Steve said.

"Oh, it's definitely possible to fall off," said Thor, hefting the hammer, "Loki and I fell off the Bifrost not that long ago. That's how we found Bruce, actually."

Steve looked slightly concerned. He opened his mouth to ask something else, but Thor thrust Stormbreaker at the sky and whatever he was saying was drowned out by the roar of the Bifrost.

"Oh shit—" she could barely hear Steve saying, and she agreed wholeheartedly. Light cascaded in shimmering waves around them like a waterfall. Natasha felt simultaneously like they were hurtling upward through it and also being pushed down toward the ground. There was nothing beneath their feet but more light and when she realized it, she felt as if she might topple over. Steve was teetering, holding his arms out like he was trying to balance. Above the deafening crash of energy, they could hear Thor laughing.

"Ready?!" he yelled.

"Ready for what?!" she asked.

"For landing!" Thor said.

Natasha had a split second to worry that humans were not _meant_ to use the Bifrost and they — or _she_ , at least — would be shattered by the impact or the weight of it or both before she felt the gentle pressure of solid ground beneath her feet and the light dissipated with an echoing boom.

Beside her, Steve staggered and fell back into a patch of flowers and didn't get up. Thor was still laughing.

Then they were all laughing. It bubbled up in Natasha's throat, unstoppable. Everything that had happened, all the awfulness and heaviness of it, was chased away by lightheaded disorientation. For just a moment, they lived in a world without loss.

"You—" Thor gasped, "You should have seen your face—"

"Shut up!" Steve said, "You said I could fall off!"

Thor doubled over, wheezing, and let himself flop to the ground. Natasha sank to her knees between them and shut her eyes until her equilibrium returned.

It was the smell that hit her first — flowers, not quite like roses, with a sweetness like honey, and underneath it the chlorophyll scent of grass, of green leaves and growing things. The air was thick with it, warm and humid, with a breeze that brushed across them, as soft and cool as silk. She could hear the rush of leaves, the soft creak of windblown branches, the trickle of running water, the chirping of insects.

"God, this place is incredible," Steve said.

They were on the edge of a forest. Beside it, the sky stretched out in dreamy lavender across a grassy plain, sinking into soft pink at the horizon. Stars were just barely visible, like a distant dusting of glitter. The whole world had a feel like twilit midsummer, though the sun ( _a_ sun — smaller or further away than Earth's, by a little) was shining out from behind a patch of golden clouds that swirled lazily above them.

An iridescent violet beetle crawled across her hand, then jumped off her knuckle to disappear into the grass. In the distance, pale green lights flickered like huge fireflies through the trees. _Fairies_ , Natasha realized when she caught more than a glimpse of one.

Thor had a grin on his face, the look of someone who had pulled off a deeply satisfying prank. This was why he'd brought them — not because he needed help, or because he was lonely. Just to show them something beautiful.

So much was gone, and still there were beautiful things in the universe.

Her eyes were suddenly very wet. She wiped them with the back of her hand, feeling childish.

Thor, watching her, said only, "I know."

They stayed like that for a long time. Much longer than they'd intended.

Steve said, "Are you really all right?" He pushed himself up to his elbows and looked over at Thor.

"Is anyone?" Thor asked. He sighed. Eventually he admitted, "I feel responsible."

"Responsible? For what?"

Thor plucked a little star-shaped flower from the grass, then another one. "I should have cleaved his head from his body. I should have driven Stormbreaker straight into his skull. But I wanted him to know who killed him. I wanted him to know _why_. Vision — the Mind Stone was only on Earth because I left it there. I was more concerned for its safety than his. Ragnarok — the fall of Asgard — if I'd gone home, if I'd known my father wasn't where he was supposed to be — if the Tesseract had been protected by all the might of Asgard and not just my brother—"

"You did what you could," Steve said. "You didn't know what was coming."

"Loki knew," Thor said. "I knew he knew _something_. I knew something was _wrong_ — back then, back when he came to Earth. I knew someone was behind it. After the Chitauri were destroyed, I thought it was over. I should never have stopped looking. I should have asked him. After — I never went to see him. I never even tried. All this time I thought he attacked Earth out of anger at me, but what if that was never what it was? Thanos sent him here, to get the Tesseract. What if he forced him? What if he _hurt him_ —"

As he spoke, he picked more flowers, weaving them together. By the time the words trailed off, he had a chain of them.

"I have to find him," Thor said. "I _will_ find him."

"If Loki's alive," Natasha said gently, "Why hasn't _he_ found _you?_ "

Thor took a deep breath and let it out again, slowly, nodding. "Twice now, I have thought my brother dead, and twice he has returned. Both times I greeted him with nothing but anger and disappointment." He twisted the chain around into a garland. He held it out and she leaned forward to let him set it on her head. "It'll be different, this time."

She just nodded. Steve had slumped back into the grass and was staring up at the sky.

"You don't believe me," Thor said. He smiled at her. "I probably sound like a madman. It's all right. He fooled Thanos too. He almost fooled me again. Not this time."

He looked out across the grass, to where a road snaked through the plain toward a city that looked like a great cluster of pink flowers.

"This time," he said softly to himself, "The first thing I'll tell him is how glad I am to see him. I would rather love a living coward than a dead hero. This time I'll make sure he knows that."

o

"You two look like you had a good time," said Clint, when Steve and Natasha walked in that evening.

"We did, actually," said Natasha, sitting down next to him as Steve hastily pulled a pair of big pink lilies from behind his ears. "We saw unicorns."

"Unicorns."

She poured herself a glass of whatever he was drinking and took a sip. "Unicorns."

Rhodey, who had been sitting at the coffee table in front of a laptop, abruptly stood and left the room. An article left open on the screen declared _Stark Empire Goes To Chauffeur_.

She hung the flower crown on her bedpost, expecting that it would be dead the next morning. It persisted for days, filling the room with the scent of otherworldly blossoms and her dreams with sparkling alien skies.

o

Vanaheim was next on Thor's list, and it turned out to be much bigger than the elf realm. Thor took a number of short trips over the next week, and most of them found reasons to accompany him at one point or another.

Okoye and the dora milaje had accompanied Shuri — who was desperate at the opportunity to see another world and the space-faring technology it held — on such a venture to the court of some diplomat.

"It would have been disappointing indeed if nowhere in the universe had more advanced technology than Wakanda," Okoye said. "Vanaheim was impressive in many places, though I fear what Shuri will come up with after witnessing faster-than-light travel." Upon learning Shuri was a princess, they had offered her anything she could carry to take home with her. The girl had brought back nothing but inspiration and a deep desire to one day return.

("Next time," she'd said, eyes sparkling, "Wakandan ships will carry us there." Not one of them doubted her.)

"We stumbled upon some of his people there," said Okoye, "Not the ones he was looking for, but others stranded by the destruction of his homeland. A band of warriors. They were led by a woman — _Sif_."

She frowned at Natasha and shook her head.

"She was taken in the culling."

That explained why Thor had come back sullen and disheartened, and the intermittent thunderstorms that had plagued Wakanda since their return. Natasha recognized the name from his many tales of adventure.

"She was a childhood friend of his," she said. _An old love_ , she didn't say. The knowledge was almost too heavy to bear herself, much less to share it.

o

The next time she saw Thor, it was because he sought her out and cornered her alone in a hallway.

"Everything okay?" she asked him, because everything was clearly _not okay_. He was strange, agitated.

"How is Bruce?" he asked her. When she had to pause and sort through her confusion, he continued, "Rhodey says his work has been suffering. He couldn't bring out the Hulk. How has he seemed to you?"

Something was wrong. It was in the way he held himself, in the sharp edge of desperation in his voice. A tenseness on the edge of breaking, like the intake of breath before a scream.

"He seems... okay," she said, "Are you worried about him?"

"He seems normal then? Not strange?"

"Not... _strange_ ," she said, not quite truthfully. "Distant maybe. He's upset, like everyone else. He's upset about you, about Asgard. It hit him really hard." There was something here. Dots she wasn't connecting.

Thor looked like _he_ was connecting dots. He paced, briefly but nervously. "You two were close, once," he said, "Have you been... _close_ recently? Since he returned? Have you been together?"

She swallowed, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks. She didn't snap at him, but he must have seen something in her face because he seemed to know he'd overstepped.

He said, apologetically, "Please."

"No," she admitted. "I guess I really haven't seen that much of him at all." She had to find a way to defuse this, whatever it was.

Thor ran his hand through his hair. Thinking. She called his name, but he'd gone somewhere he couldn't hear her.

He started walking and she followed, swept up in his wake.

o

Natasha ran.

She ran, and the Hulk ran after her. She dodged and weaved, dancing just ahead of disaster, until there was nowhere left — just a straight run toward a storage hangar. She could see the door was closed, but the hallway wasn't big enough for the Hulk. She ran for it, and knew she'd made a mistake. Behind her she could hear the Hulk smashing through glass and steel, as fast and unstoppable as a runaway train.

When he hit her — almost by accident — it felt like being hit by a car. She slumped against the wall and looked up to see the Hulk looming over her.

Seldom in her life had Natasha Romanov thought, without any trace of irony, _"god help me,"_ and that moment remained the only one where she was certain one truly had.

Thor hit the Hulk like a rocket, and they both went straight through the steel door into the hangar.

She could see them, for the first few moments of their fight. Thor bobbed nimbly around the Hulk's swings. The Hulk was not the first monster Thor had fought, nor even close to the most horrifying, and it showed. But what surprised Natasha was that before he made any move to hit back, he _spoke_. Tried to reason with Banner, tried to talk him down.

Thor wasn't a particularly good diplomat — though he had his charms — but he always tried. Words were always the first weapon he drew in any battle.

"Sorry," Banner said later. "I've uh. I've got kind of a temper."

Thor just laughed.

o

Bruce was by himself on the couch in the parlor when they found him. Alone with a bottle, today, because Clint hadn't even gotten out of bed. (It wasn't only Thor who was falling apart — it wasn't that she didn't understand that, just that it was him slipping away that scared her the most. Firstly because he was a god, and he had seemed so unbreakable. Secondly, because she remembered Loki — unhinged and cruel — and the idea of _Thor_ made mad with grief did more than simply break her heart — it terrified her.)

"That's quite a habit you've stumbled into," Thor said to him.

"Yeah," said Bruce.

"It's unlike you," Thor continued, and finally Bruce looked up at him. Thor advanced toward him, cautiously, as if he thought he might run if Thor moved too quickly. "You've been unlike yourself in many ways since you got back to Earth."

"Well, you know," said Bruce, self-consciously, "Two years as the Hulk and an apocalypse and a half will do that to you, I guess."

"Is that all it is?"

Bruce looked confused. And then he didn't. His eyes went wide. He stood.

Thor covered the distance between them in two strides and grabbed him by the shoulders. "You knew things," he said, almost accusingly, "You knew things Bruce Banner couldn't know. Things only the Hulk would know. But Bruce doesn't remember anything while he's the Hulk—"

"Oh no," Bruce said, his voice breaking, "Oh Thor, no—"

"I'm not angry," Thor said emphatically, "I'm _not angry_. Please. If — I just need to know. Just tell me. It's all right. You're safe, you won't get in trouble—"

Bruce shook his head. "I'm not—" he choked, "Thor, I'm not him. I'm not Loki."

Slowly, Thor went still. After a moment, he gave a shaky little laugh. "I'm sorry," he said. He sniffled softly and wiped tears from his cheek with his wrist. "I'm sorry," he said again. "It's just. He's... he's tricked me before."

"I know," said Bruce. "I know he has."

"Last time he — he pretended to be Odin. For four years, he was _there_ , the whole time—"

"I know, Thor," said Bruce, quietly.

"He could be anywhere, really," Thor said. He laughed, but the tears wouldn't stop.

"Thor," said Bruce.

"It was foolish," Thor said. "I jumped to—"

 _"Thor,"_ said Bruce, gentle but insistent, "I don't... Thor, I don't think he's coming back."

Thor was shaking his head. "No, no. Not this time. I'll find him. He's not gone. He has hidden himself, somewhere." Bruce reached for him, grabbed him by the arms. "It's just — he's hidden too well, this time. I cannot find him. Nor any of my people — and that's proof, isn't it? Who could hide a whole people so well but Loki?"

Bruce pulled him down onto the couch and put his arms around him.

"You don't know him like I do. You don't know. You don't. _He promised me_."

 _The sun will shine on us again._

"He came home," Thor said, miserably, into Bruce's shoulder, "He could have run. He could have stayed safe on Sakaar. I challenged him to be more, to be better, to change, and he _did_. He came home. He saved us. He came back. He always comes back."

Natasha walked over and sat beside them, putting her arms around Thor's ribs and resting her face against his broad back. He shook with silent sobs. One of Bruce's hands found her cheek, and their eyes met over Thor's shoulder.

They sat there for a long time, as if with him braced between them they could stop him from falling apart.

o

"I've been selfish," Thor said later, as an apology. "Wherever they are, my people are fine. Loki — he knows where I am. I stand with Midgard, as I always have. There are things I can do here. Things only I can do."

He had the notebook out again, and it almost worried Natasha to see it. He and Rocket were sliding it between them, making notations on something like a map, as they explained what they were doing to her and each other.

"Tony might still be out there, somewhere," Rhodey said. "He and Spider-Man — that's... he's kind of a junior Avenger, I guess? Apprentice Avenger? Anyway. They caught a ride on one of those ships."

"They pursued the minions of Thanos off-world with the sorcerer, Doctor Strange, who I met when Loki and I came to Earth in search of our father, just before Ragnarok," Thor said.

"The rest of my crew went to Knowhere," said Rocket. "Knowhere's gone, so we're working on the assumption that they made it there too late to take on Thanos. You know. Because the only other option sucks."

"I checked Nidavellir to see if they went there in search of us," said Thor, "But Eitri has had no visitors."

Rocket nodded. "Gamora and Nebula — that's her sister, you didn't meet her — would know where Thanos's main base is. He's from a planet called Titan. If we can find them, they might know where he's gone."

"One of Jupiter's moons is called Titan," Natasha said. "Wait. Or is it Saturn?" She looked at Bruce.

Thor waved his hand. "I checked. It was the wrong Titan."

"Yeah, I should really get you a spacesuit," said Rocket.

"Spacesuits are for mortals."

"Well I got two on me," said Rocket. "One more in the pod back on Nidavellir if you want to go grab it. Hold on, actually—" He hopped off his chair and dashed back to the hallway that held their guest rooms.

"Are we ever gonna talk about the fact that he's a raccoon?" Rhodey asked.

"Nope," said Thor, scratching out the dot on the map that said " _Knowhere_."

"What's 'the supercruiser'?" Natasha asked.

"The Statesman," said Bruce, "A big like... space... cruise liner? The rebellion stole it to escape from Sakaar, so that's where. You know." He looked at Thor.

Thor's face twitched. He pressed his knuckles to his lips and made a sort of choking sound.

"Sorry," Bruce said, but Thor shook his head.

Rocket returned with a pair of devices and slapped them down on the table before taking the map from Thor.

"These are spacesuits?" Rhodey asked, as he and Bruce each picked one up to examine.

"Yep." Rocket shook his head. "Man, you guys are still in the stone age. How Quill ever got off this rock is beyond me."

Thor snorted into his fist, loudly enough to draw Clint and Steve's attention from the other side of the room. "Sorry," he said. He snickered. "It's just. I know you were the Hulk then but do you remember when it got to Asgard? The Statesman?"

"Not really," Bruce said. "I was fighting a giant monster dog."

Thor cleared his throat. "Right, and I was fighting Hela in the castle. The people were on the bridge, Heimdall and the Valkyrie were fighting off an army of the undead—"

"Wait, wait, hold up," said Clint, "Are there zombies in this story?"

"Ancient Asgardian warrior zombies," Thor confirmed.

Clint hopped the couch to come over. "Yeah all right, the news isn't that interesting tonight."

Thor paused, as if he was suddenly self-conscious.

"Come on, man," said Rhodey, "You can't just leave us hanging at 'zombies.'"

The god of thunder nodded, chuckling. "So, Hela's army was coming down the bridge after the people and there weren't enough soldiers left to hold them off, and Heimdall had the key to the Bifrost so no one could get through it. They were all trapped. And then — and this is how the Valkyrie told it to me, because I wasn't there, I was busy having my eye stabbed out—"

"What?!" squawked Steve.

"Oh yeah, this one's fake," said Thor, popping his right eye out of his face and causing the gathered group to erupt into various noises of disgusted protest, except Rocket, who _cackled_.

"So the Valkyrie said suddenly, she hears, 'Asgard, your savior has arrived!' and there's Loki, rising up out of the smoke on the gangplank of the supercruiser, arms outstretched, the stupid helmet with the horns, the cape billowing, the whole works."

Bruce said suddenly, "Oh _God._ Like the _statue_."

"Statue?" Natasha asked, as Thor burst into raucous laughter.

"You _saw_ it?" Thor asked him.

"Yeah, yeah," said Bruce, "When we were flying over the city. Thor. _Thor_. Why did Asgard have a _giant golden statue of Loki?_ "

Thor was laughing too hard to answer. "It's not—" he gasped, "It's not funny. It really isn't, it's terrible. But—"

"'Full-tilt diva,'" Steve said. "That was what Tony called him."

"Oh gods, you have _no idea_ —"

It was like opening a floodgate. Talk of Loki had been practically taboo since Thor had dragged him back to Asgard all those years ago, and now that he'd started, Thor couldn't stop. And there was so much to tell. A thousand years of pranks gone terribly wrong, of trouble gotten into and out of. Stories — many of which the Avengers had heard before, suddenly complete with the addition of a brother who, it turned out, had hardly left Thor's side in the millennium they'd lived together.

o

It almost seemed like it might be all right.

And then it started to rain one night, and Thor and Rhodey and Rocket walked in looking utterly beaten. Rocket had a big sack over one shoulder, and he and Thor walked back to their rooms in silence. Rhodey went to the table and sat down a hunk of metal, twisted nearly beyond recognition, the familiar red scratched off at the edges. Steve picked it up gingerly, his face unreadable.

"It was all over Titan," Rhodey said. "There was some kind of impact — meteors or whatever. We found the Milano, all busted up. Not a living soul anywhere, not a single body."

After a while, Rocket came back out and slumped into a chair. Clint poured him a drink.

"Hey," he said, "That team of yours. You still got some room on it?"

"Yeah," said Natasha. "We're down a smart-mouthed mechanic. You fit right in."

The world was so much quieter without Tony Stark in it. If she kept thinking about it, eventually Natasha was going to have to admit to herself that she missed him.

o

"I don't know what to do," Steve said to her. "The weather's starting to cause problems."

It had been nothing but storms — of varying severity — for days now. Wakanda was sympathetic, but they needed the sun more than they needed Asgard's god of thunder.

"If they tell him to leave," said Natasha, "We're never going to see him again."

"I know," Steve said.

o

Natasha lay in bed and tried to figure out what had woken her up. It was the quiet, she realized. The rain was gone.

Gone.

She squirmed out from under Bruce's arm and into her clothes. It was never really a graceful thing, getting into that damn catsuit. She zipped it up as she crept carefully out of the room, then hopped inelegantly to pull on her boots as she ran through the corridor. It was stupid — she knew it was stupid — but all she could think was that maybe she wasn't too late. Maybe she could catch him before he was gone. (Gone forever. Like Tony. Like Sam and Wanda. Like Bucky. Like Laura and the kids, and Nick and Maria and Pepper and Sif and T'Challa and and and. The list never ended, it never stopped. It never stopped.)

 _Don't be gone._

His bed was made and empty. The parlor was empty, and she snatched one of Rocket's devices off the table as she passed it. Everywhere she walked, empty and quiet at this time of night. She burst through the door to find him still walking out toward the street, the notebook in one hand ( _he never took it with him he always left it and came back for it—_ ) and Stormbreaker in the other. He turned at the sound.

"Don't go," she said.

He looked surprised for a moment, then he gave her a sad smile. He set Stormbreaker on the ground with a heavy _thunk_ and opened his arms and she walked over into the embrace gladly.

"I'll be back," he said. "I'm not leaving. I'll be right back."

"Where are you headed now?" she asked him.

He laughed. "I'm such a fool," he said. "It was right there, the whole time. Right in front of my face." He handed over the notebook and tapped it, and she saw that he'd added a new mark on it, close to the wreck of the Statesman.

"I'm going with you," she said.

"That's probably unwise," he said. "It's going to be a cold trip."

Natasha Romanov laughed. "I'm Russian. How cold could it be?"


	3. let it go

"Be wary," said Thor, as Natasha hopped down from the roof to join the rest of the Avengers, "He's been conservative with his magic thus far but he's capable of much more than simple illusions."

"What else are we talking?" Rogers asked.

"He can change his shape. Beguile minds. He can walk the hidden paths between worlds," Thor said. "As long as he can cast spells, no cage can hold him."

"So how do we stop him from casting spells?"

Stark muffled a short laugh behind his hand. "Silence?" he asked.

"Nerd," grunted Clint. He pulled an arrow, making it pretty clear how _he_ intended to keep Loki from escaping.

Thor was nodding, though. "It's... crude, but yes. Preventing speech will indeed prevent him from using his magic."

Inside, Loki was starting to pull himself to a sitting position. When he turned around, they were all there to menace him.

"If it's all the same to you," he said, and looked at Stark, "I'll have that drink now."

Natasha wondered if Stark had actually tried to stall Loki with flirting and mentally filed that tidbit away to tease him with later. (She was feeling optimistic, now that she was relatively certain there was going to _be_ a later.) Half of her was still sort of hoping Clint's fingers would slip and "accidentally" send that arrow straight into Loki's smarmy face. (Would it kill him? She somehow doubted it. Would it hurt? Yes. Yes it would. Natasha recognized an explosive-tipped arrow when she saw it. That was why she was standing back.)

Thor picked Loki up by the front of his shirt and swung him around so that the Hulk could grab him in both hands, pinning his arms to his sides.

Loki shifted uncomfortably in the Hulk's grasp, and his voice had a certain forced lightness as he said, "Unnecessary, I assure you. There's very little I can do against—"

Natasha brandished the scepter at him and he stuttered to a stop with a breathy chuckle.

"What do you think?" Stark asked, "Duct tape?"

Loki just said, "Really?" He rolled his eyes and offered up his wrists as best he could with his arms so pinned.

"Think again, asshole," said Clint.

Loki gave him a look of patronizing confusion.

"That's not a long-term solution," Natasha said. She tapped her earpiece, "Loki's contained, Director. We're gonna need a set of restraints." She waited for him to look at her and locked eyes with him. "And a muzzle."

Loki sneered at her. His gaze snapped to Thor, "You wouldn't dare allow—" Thor put his hand over his brother's mouth.

Loki positively _exploded_. Rogers had to help the Hulk hold him and Clint and Natasha wisely stepped back. Thor held his mouth shut as they waited, and Loki screamed with rage the entire time.

Natasha would have put money on Loki's pride preventing him from begging, but when SHIELD agents arrived with the muzzle, the sounds he was making turned plaintive. Thor had to move his hand for them to put the muzzle on, and Loki managed to choke out half a word that might have been _"wait"_ before it was on and secured.

She and Clint watched with satisfaction. Stark watched with disgust. Thor refused to look at him at all.

Rogers looked him dead in the eye and said, "You brought this on yourself." If looks could kill, the abject hatred in Loki's eyes would have caused Captain America to burst into flames on the spot.

o

The Bifrost shattered around them like glass and there was nothing but white, white, white everywhere. Natasha was falling, falling into nothing, falling in every direction at once, and then her back hit something that crunched beneath her.

The world was cold as death and there was nothing in it. She couldn't feel her body. Couldn't tell if she'd lost consciousness. Her brain told her arm to move up in front of her eyes so she could see it and she was almost surprised when her hand did indeed float into her line of sight.

She hit the activation button on Rocket's little device — which clung, magnet-like, to her chest — and when the spacesuit was on the feeling started to come back into her limbs.

 _"How cold could it be?" Pretty fucking cold, Natasha._

She sat up. The snow came nearly up to her elbows.

"Thor?" she had to raise her voice to a shout to even hear it over the howl of the wind.

Something had gone wrong.

 _"We can't fall off of this thing, right?"_ Steve had asked.

 _"Oh, it's definitely possible to fall off,"_ Thor had said. They had laughed then. There was nothing funny about it now.

About twenty feet away, she saw him — red cape billowing like a flag in the blizzard — getting to his feet.

She saw him start to panic, heard her name on the wind.

"Here," Natasha said, staggering toward him against the wind. He reached an arm out to pull her close, so she could brace herself against him. "What happened?" she asked him, shouting over the howl of the wind.

"Something hit us," he said.

"Was it the storm?" she asked.

"No," he said, then, "Maybe. Nothing like that has ever happened before."

"Never? You said—"

"Ah, no," Thor said, "We were pushed, _that_ was not an accident."

He was shivering.

"Thor," she said. "Let's get out of here. We can come back."

He shook his head. "Not while there's a chance of that happening again. If I lost you, I couldn't live with myself."

That warmed her heart, even as it hurt to hear. She put her arm around his waist, though she knew he probably couldn't feel any heat through the suit.

"Do you know where we are?" she asked him.

Thor looked around futilely. "I know where we're _supposed_ to be," he said.

He took another moment to get his bearings, and they started to walk.

o

"Thor," said Natasha, "Someone is following us."

He nodded. "Frost giants," he said. "We're heading toward their capital."

"Are they... friendly?" she asked, uncertain. They didn't _look_ friendly, lurking the edges of cliffs and crags, vanishing when they got near, staying just beyond the blizzard. Watching.

"I don't know," he admitted, "Our peoples have never had an easy relationship."

Natasha frowned. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"They invaded Midgard. Asgard pushed them back into their own realm. There was a peace treaty, which they broke and I broke and Loki broke and then Loki tried to... blow up their planet."

"That escalated quickly."

"You have no idea."

"And you think he came here?" she said.

Thor shivered and pulled her closer. "I'm becoming less and less certain. This is the closest of Asgard's nine realms to the wreck of the Statesman."

"And the most hostile?"

"Oh no," said Thor flippantly, "Muspelheim is _on fire_."

"Oh," she chirped.

At some point, their path had turned to sharp, icy crags, and Natasha had glanced down to watch her step when she felt Thor stop and stiffen.

He stared ahead into the storm, at a dark silhouette heading toward them.

From what Natasha could see, the frost giants seemed to be uniformly lean, bald, and nearly-naked. The shadowy form heading toward them was bulky with some sort of cloak, and crowned with a familiar pair of swept-back horns.

Thor whispered something that was drowned out by the wind, and Natasha didn't need to hear him to know what it was.

He surged forward through the snow, dragging her with him.

"Thor!" she cried out, "Thor, _wait_ —" She lost her grip on him, and when she reached out to grab his cape the wind whipped the fabric out of her hand. Between the wind and the knee-high snow, she couldn't keep up with him.

Around them, the giants were closing in.

Thor slowed, then stopped. The figure before him loomed like a mountain. Too big to be Loki — at least nine feet tall. The horns were too long, too twisted, and when the giant stepped close enough, she could see that they were from half the skull of some massive beast, which the giant wore like a crown, or a mask.

"Odinson," it said, tone sinister. "I have waited a long, long time for this moment."

It raised a crooked stave toward him and the wind was gone. The falling snow drifted gently in the air before settling. Natasha was finally able to struggle through the snow to Thor's side.

"I mean your people no harm," Thor said, "I have come—"

"Quiet," it hissed at him. Then, loudly: "I am Queen of Jotunheim, now, _son of Odin_. And today, the debt of blood between us will be settled. Bear witness, and be still!" This last bit she shouted out to the rest of the giants surrounding them, who were inching toward them restlessly. There was an air of formality about it; Natasha wondered if Thor was about to be challenged to some kind of ritual combat.

Thor reached over to find her with his hand. "Whatever you want," he said to the queen, without looking down at Natasha, "I cannot give it to you."

He would have fought, Natasha thought, if she hadn't been here, dependent upon him to get her home.

"What I want?" the Jotun Queen stepped forward toward him, "And do you know what that is, King of Nothing?"

Thor tensed but was silent.

"Yes," she said, "I know the fate of Asgard, and the fate of its once-king. No army behind you, no family beside you, no one. Alone. A child shivering in the snow, with all you love in ruins far from your pitiful reach. I have waited for this day for ten and one-half centuries. Waited to find _you_ so desperate."

"I mean you no harm," Thor said again. "Please." He bent forward in a stiff bow. His voice was weak — she'd hit him where it hurt. Natasha didn't speak. Instead, she counted their enemies and tried to decide if she could take on even one of them.

"Long ago, your father laid waste to this land. He slaughtered its armies and plundered its treasures, and once the fighting was done," she stepped closer, "Odin One-Eye found among the dead, upon that field of battle, _my son_. Today, I give to you what your father gave to him."

The crook of the giant's staff came down beneath Thor's face to force him to look up.

"Thor Odinson, king of Asgard. Do you know who I am?"

Thor looked up at her in confusion. "Queen of Jotunheim?"

"Queen of Jotunheim," she said, more gently — for him, now, rather than projected out for their audience, "Once-wife of the coward-king Laufey. Boy, I do not come to you now to collect a debt, but to _pay_ one. I am Farbauti, blood-mother of Loki. Brother of my son, I offer you a _home_."

Thor stared at her, speechless. The grin that spread slowly across the queen's face said clearly that this was the intended effect of her speech. Around them, a sound went up among the giants.

They were laughing.

"Come, king of Asgard," said Farbauti with a laugh, "Odin Allfather had a dream of peace between our peoples. Let us speak of it." She held her hand out to him.

o

"In truth, the sudden dying was nothing but a boon for me," Farbauti said icily. "The throne has been in dispute since the death of Laufey and my support for Asgard — though only lately gained — was not a popular stance. We were warned that if such a thing should happen, no place in the universe would be safe." She laughed. "As if _this_ universe is the only one in which to hide. With my detractors halved, Jotunheim soon bowed to me without reservation."

"You," Thor stammered, "You hid yourself in _another universe_?"

"Between them, more precisely," she said. "There are cracks in the realms — strange pathways that can be walked by those who have an understanding of such things."

"I know," said Thor. "My brother had such a gift." _Had_. Natasha saw his jaw tighten. He'd heard it too. He didn't correct himself.

Utgard was a massive fortress that had been built across some kind of pass through the icy mountains. Natasha's impression was one of age and wear. Obelisks of geometrically-cut black stone buried in the frozen cliffs stretched upward to great vaulted ceilings, etched lovingly into intricate designs like the ones on the frost giants' skin.

"This place is beautiful," Natasha said, still exploring the grand entry hall with her eyes. She realized that Thor and the queen were staring at her and resisted the urge to add, _isn't it?_

Farbauti beamed, black lips parting to reveal a row of teeth sharp as a shark's, and launched proudly into a speech about her peoples' great love of architecture and recent restoration efforts to the ancient city. Thor chuckled, not unkindly, behind his hand, but Natasha did see him look around at the place, as if for the first time.

They were led through the fortress and soon, Farbauti beckoned them to a great archway out into what Natasha imagined would be the city proper.

As they approached, she said, with the lightest touch of sarcasm, "Welcome home, _my son_."

Thor stopped and stared.

The bulk of the Jotun city was either far above ground (towering spires of stone connected by bridges) or deep inside the icy mountains (archways were visible cut into the mountainside.) They had been led out into some kind of courtyard, and clustered around the walls were ships. Little spacecrafts, no bigger than quinjets, and tents propped up between them and beside them and in the center of it all, big warm, welcoming bonfires.

And all among this were Thor's people.

There was no particular look to them, except that they were mostly human in shape, with the occasional alien mixed in among them. It was by Thor's face that Natasha knew them.

Thor sucked in a breath.

"My brother isn't here, is he?" he asked quietly.

Farbauti regarded him for a long moment. Finally, she said simply, "No."

o

The story came to them a piece at a time, and the people of Asgard were more than willing to tell it. Stories were an important thing to them, Natasha came to understand. Particularly stories of the dead, of valiant battles and great sacrifices.

That was the story Asgard told them of Thor's brother.

The most important thing, he had told them, maybe the _only_ important thing, was for all of them to stay together.

As they'd fled the ruined Statesman, in every pod, an illusion had told them where to go. Had brought up star charts and pointed out Jotunheim on them. _Here. Go here._

They had landed to a cold welcome, but a welcome all the same.

Loki had been _here_ , too — not then, but years ago. Thor had not been the only one to dream of Ragnarok's coming. Loki had made plans, contingency upon contingency. Plans for a Nine Realms without the benefit of Asgard's rule.

It was only here that he'd come as himself. He'd sought out Jotunheim's warring rulers and when they wouldn't surrender the throne to him, he'd brokered peace with Farbauti as the Allfather had done with Laufey centuries before. In exchange for her cooperation, he'd given her information about Thanos and an artifact called the Casket of Ancient Winters.

The Tesseract, too, had been a bargaining chip. It had been another of Odin's conquests in the war against the Jotuns — Farbauti herself had wielded its power to bring the frost giants to Midgard those many centuries ago.

He hadn't stolen it. He was bringing it home.

"I'm sure," he'd said, over and over, "I know what I'm doing. Trust me."

They all knew what those words sounded like, coming from Loki. They had done it anyway.

"This is suicide," the Valkyrie had told him, in the cockpit of the Commodore.

He had laughed.

"No," he'd said. " _This_ is suicide." (Though of course, none of them could see the dagger he thrust toward the Titan's throat.) And then he was gone. A dozen dozen Lokis, guttering out like candles in a gust of wind.

The Valkyrie was gone now. She had taken the Commodore and a score of warriors and gone to search for Asgard's lost king. Loki had promised her Thor would live.

Loki had made a lot of promises that day.

o

"Thor," Natasha said softly. They were sitting by one of the fires, and it was warm enough that she'd been able to deactivate the spacesuit.

"I know," he said. "I was _so certain_."

She leaned her head against his arm.

"I tried to tell myself that it didn't make sense," he said. "He said, 'the sun will shine on us again,' and then he stalled for so long. It was so — so contrived. So _acted_. I told myself there had to be a _reason_. Some plan. No matter how bad things got, Loki always managed to slip away somehow. Surely, this time couldn't be different."

He almost sounded like he wanted her to reassure him. She wished she could. If she'd thought for even a moment that believing Loki was still alive would make him better, make him happier, make him heal, she would have told any lie to make it so. She couldn't.

"He was buying time to tell the Asgardians where to go."

He nodded. "It wasn't — it wasn't just that. Bruce told me about Wanda's fight against Thanos — that when he was done with Vision and she stopped fighting, he didn't hurt her further," he said. "I think that was when I understood."

He took a deep breath and held it for a while. Composing himself. She let him take as long as he needed.

"Thanos — he is ruthless. Cruel. His wrath is a terrible thing, and Loki had earned it. But he believes himself righteous. _Fair_. When he came for the space stone, after he had slaughtered half our people—" he had to take another moment, then. A deep breath, in and out, shaky.

"My brother did not fear pain, and he did not fear death, and he was... _so selfish_. The first and last thing Thanos threatened Loki with was _me_ — to give up the space stone or he'd kill me. Loki tried to call his bluff," Thor gave a soft laugh, "But the moment I started screaming, he folded. That was all it took."

He looked at her. "He must have known then. As long as he lived, Thanos would use me against him. As long as he lived, I was going to be his punishment. So he—" he laughed again, and it was hard for him to get his breath back. "He pulled a knife on him. Thanos, armed with two infinity stones, and Loki pulled a knife on him. A _knife_." This time the laugh was definitely a sob.

"When... when it was done... it was like I didn't even exist to him anymore. He just tossed — just tossed him aside, like _trash_ —" That was it. Thor broke. Big heaving sobs and gulping breaths and between them words like blood welling up from a wound.

 _"He's gone."_ Thor wailed, "He's _gone_. And I couldn't — I couldn't — by the time I could hold him he was _gone_." He held his hands out before him, empty. "He couldn't hear — the last thing I said to him was that he was _the worst_. That was the last thing he ever heard me say. Thanos muzzled me. He muzzled me like we muzzled Loki on Midgard, after — what would he have said, if I had just listened? Why didn't I listen? I never spoke to him again in anything but anger, after that. _He didn't know that I loved him_."

 _What would Loki have said?_ That was a question that had never crossed Natasha's mind. None of them had imagined that he had anything _to_ say.

Natasha Romanov did not like to dwell on _what-ifs_ but she knew this one was going to haunt her.

In those moments, bound and muzzled and entirely in their power, Loki had _known_ what was coming. Maybe the others could blame Loki for that, but for her it was different.

She'd been tasked with learning Loki's plans, and she'd failed.

Could she have convinced him to tell them? If she'd known then that he'd been working for someone else, what would she have done? After what he'd done to Clint, could she have set aside her feelings and treated him like just another enemy agent? (Actually, she thought she knew the answer to that one, at least. She didn't know if the fact that she could have made it less tragic or more so.)

At some point, you had to decide to be okay with not knowing.

 _Your world in the balance, and you bargain for one man?_ she thought, as Thor fell apart beside her. She'd been bluffing, then, in the helicarrier. Loki had not. He'd _done it_ — had offered up his own life and half the universe besides, for the _chance_ that Thor might live. Just for the chance. The flip of a coin, at best.

"He loved you," she observed, once the sobs had softened to sniffles.

Thor nodded. "He really did," he said, as if part of him still couldn't believe it. "I don't know what to do now."

It felt strange to try to offer advice. Thor seemed so human sometimes but she could never quite forget what an ancient, fey thing he really was.

She said: "Keep going," and, "Don't forget him."

He took a deep breath and let it out again in a long sigh. Finally, he said, "Let's go home."


	4. the mechanic

_Note: I don't usually do this, but if it's been a while, please consider giving this fic a reread! It's seen some significant revisions as I shuffled things around to find the right pacing for this final chapter! Thank you!_

* * *

They sat by the fire for just a while longer. Thor pulled the notebook out from where he'd tucked it and went through it slowly, and pulled out the pages where he'd written Loki's last words. One by one, he fed them to the fire, leaving only the names of the dead behind.

It hit Natasha harder than she thought it would, to see those words disappear. In her mind, they had grown to something more than just a final gentle lie to Thor, from his brother. It felt like a promise to all of them, from everyone that they'd lost. A promise that _gone_ didn't mean _forever_. The sun would shine on them again.

Part of her wanted very badly to ask for one of them, to have something, anything, to keep. But she didn't. She told herself that grief didn't belong to her, and watched them turn to ash, like everything else they'd lost. When it was done, Thor at least seemed to feel better.

As they left, he found one of the old women who seemed to be organizing the little community and gave her the notebook. As he was explaining the circumstances of it, a pair of young women standing in the middle of a small group drew Natasha's attention. They were telling a story — the heroic last stand of an Asgardian they called _Skurge the Executioner_.

He had wielded a pair of large "Midgardian" guns, they said, and fought back an army of the dead. Natasha was inordinately charmed.

"We fought together on Vanaheim," said Thor.

Natasha blinked up at him in confusion. "Hm?"

"Skurge and I," he clarified.

"Your people really like their stories," she said.

Thor looked thoughtful. "That's what gods are, in the end," he said. "Stories. Something like that — something about words and magic... I never paid it much mind. Loki would have been able to tell you. So long as their names are remembered, the honored dead live on in Valhalla, feasting and making merry until the end of days." He gave her a crooked grin. His eyes were rimmed with red.

"I thought Ragnarok _was_ the end of days?" Natasha asked him.

He really did smile then. "And yet there are days still. And people to live in them, and stories for them to tell."

They went and saw Farbauti one last time. Thor gave her his thanks with all the courtly manner worthy of a prince, and she promised — with a slick grin Natasha wasn't entirely sure she liked — to guard his crown for him.

"One last thing," Thor said, pausing to turn back before he left. "Was it you who threw us from the Bifrost?" he asked. Curious, but not accusatory.

Farbauti grinned again. "I didn't, though I would have, if I'd thought of it. It was the storm — and _that_ was _your_ doing, God of Thunder."

The sky of Jotunheim was clear, and stars gleamed in it like diamonds strewn across black velvet. Even so, Thor wrapped his arm firmly around Natasha before he lifted Stormbreaker to the sky and called the Bifrost to take them home.

o

"Where the hell have you two been?" came Clint's voice, before the light of the Bifrost had even faded. He didn't wait for them to answer, just started walking them back into the palace. "It's all over the news. An hour ago the ISS picked up another object coming toward Earth."

o

They found the Avengers huddled around a little cluster of laptops in the parlor. Bruce sat at the center, working over a bunch of data on the center screen. Another screen off to his right showed Shuri in her lab as they talked. On Bruce's left, a Starkpad propped up on Steve's new shield was flicking through news reports.

"None of them have a visual," Rocket said. He was holding a similar device of clearly offworld make, pawing across alien symbols.

"Fill 'em in, Doc," said Clint as they walked through the door.

"About an hour ago, we started seeing reports of an unidentified object heading toward us following a sudden burst of energy that nobody on Earth could recognize," said Bruce. He gestured to a little chart at the top of the screen, which was completely unreadable to Natasha.

"What now, Armageddon?" she asked wryly. A grin flickered across his face and she felt a smile pull at her cheeks despite the growing knot in her stomach.

Bruce shook his head. "It was on a course to go straight past us but it changed direction just before it passed Mars."

"A ship, then?" Thor asked.

"It looks like it dropped out of a warp point just outside your system," said Rocket.

 _"It's consistent with the data I got from the Titan's ships,"_ said Shuri. _"Whoever they are, they're coming from the same direction."_

Rocket made a noncommittal noise. "It's the closest warp point," he said. He shifted anxiously.

Thor shook his head. He gestured to the data from the energy burst and scowled.

"Yeah," said Bruce. "It's the same energy signature as the readings Jane Foster took in New Mexico. Same as the Bifrost."

"It's too small to be one of Thanos's ships," Rocket said.

"So is it an enemy or not?" Rhodey asked, "If we don't figure it out before it gets close enough to target, somebody's going to nuke it."

"You guys still use nukes?" Rocket said, disbelief in his voice.

"Hey, nukes are the most powerful things we have," said Rhodey.

 _"Nukes are definitely not the most powerful things we have,"_ said Shuri.

"Wakanda doesn't _do_ weapons of mass destruction. What do we have that's more powerful than a nuke?" Rhodey asked.

"Me," said Thor. That was the end of that.

Bruce's fingers flickered across the keyboard. "If I can just get access to these satellites—"

 _"_ _—we can boost the signal from the hyperspace transmitter I've been developing and try to contact them,"_ Shuri finished.

"And get past whatever they've got that's interfering with our tracking so Thor can blow them out of the sky if they don't answer," said Clint grimly.

On the screen, Shuri finished something and ran out of her lab. She ran into the room a few minutes later, with a laptop under one arm. She shoved everything else on the table over to set it down.

"How long do we have?" Natasha asked.

"Twelve minutes 'til they hit atmo," said Rocket.

Rhodey's phone rang. "Oh god," he said, "Please don't be Ross, I don't have time for—" he stopped, staring at the screen.

"Who is it?" Steve asked.

The phone rang again and Rhodey hit the button to take the call, then the button to put it on speaker. Rhodey took a deep breath.

"Tony?"

Everybody stopped.

 _"Hey,"_ said a familiar voice, _"Did you miss me?"_ After a few seconds of stunned silence in which they could hear a curt feminine voice talking in the background, _"Hello? You going through a tunnel?"_

"Tony," Rhodey said again. "You're alive."

 _"Yeah. Uh, about that. Think you can call Ross or somebody and make sure they don't shoot down my Uber? That would just really be the cherry on top of the shit sundae that is this day."_ Then, to the person in the background, he said, _"Can you_ _— will you stop already? They can't pick up our transmissions. Earth doesn't have space wifi."_

"Actually," said Bruce loudly, "I think we do. Shuri?"

"I've got their signal," Shuri said. "I think I can..." She poked at something on her screen, and from the laptop's speakers they heard a voice.

 _"_ _—repeat: this is the Asgardian scouting vessel Commodore. We're just here to return your Iron Man, we don't want any trouble. I repeat: this is—"_

"Valkyrie!" said Bruce.

"It's one-way," Shuri said.

 _"Bruce says hi,"_ they heard Tony say.

 _"Holy shit, the little guy made it!"_ she said. _"Finally somebody with a brain. Tell me where to put your boy Stark down. I'd just throw him out the airlock but he's bringin' a friend."_

 _"Bruce, the Valkyrie's threatening to throw me out the airlock,"_ Tony whined.

Natasha couldn't tell whether Bruce was laughing or crying or both.

Rhodey said, "In her defense, she _has_ met you."

"Give us just a sec to figure out the logistics, Tony," said Bruce, "And—"

Thor reached between them to take Rhodey's phone. He hit the button to silence the call.

 _"And?"_ said Tony's voice over the speaker.

"I need to ask a favor of you," Thor said. He swallowed. They were quiet, so he continued, "These people — these are my people. I have a responsibility to them, as king—" his eyes, flicking to Shuri, were almost apologetic. "I need for you to not tell them that I'm here."

"Thor—" started Bruce, confused.

"I know I should go," Thor said, quietly, "But you're the only family I have left."

He hesitated only briefly before he handed the phone back to Rhodey.

They returned to handling the logistics of where and how to land, only momentarily grimmer than they had been. A cloud passing over the sun.

o

They could have been brothers, Natasha thought. With their dusty-blond hair and their beards and their broad shoulders. With that look they had in their blue, blue eyes when they thought no one was looking — like they'd finally lost enough to leave them hollowed out.

They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking out the big window on one side of the parlor that looked out into the city. Already the Avengers were starting to funnel out onto the street, following Shuri and her Dora Milaje to the landing pad they'd cleared for the Commodore's arrival.

The ship itself — a sleek, circular thing, painted in black and red and gold — was just becoming visible between the buildings, descending out of the early-morning fog like a ghost. The Asgardian magic that had kept it hidden bled off it in waves of glimmering green-gold. Thor had to look away from it.

"It's good, though," Steve was saying. "Your people, your warriors — that's everyone that was missing, right?" and then, "...I'm sorry. I—"

"Everyone that was missing," Thor said. His voice was raw. "Everyone that's left."

"I know," Steve said.

Thor nodded. "I know you do."

"It's not the same—"

"No," said Thor. "You lost everything, and I can find no way to be grateful for all that I have left."

Steve sighed. He put his arm around Thor's shoulders and after a moment, Thor returned the gesture.

Natasha gave them a moment. She wished she could give them longer.

"Hey," she said. She looked at Steve, who turned to look back at her. "You coming?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "I was thinking maybe I wouldn't," he said.

A smile flashed across Thor's face. He shook his head. "Go on," he said, clapping Steve on the shoulder, "Go bring your brother home."

He took one last glance at the Commodore, and turned away from the window. When they left, he'd gone to sit at the table. He poured himself a drink and then barely looked at it, like it was just something to do with his hands.

o

The walk to the landing pad had a strange, dreamlike quality. Natasha felt light-headed, like stepping off the Bifrost and into the twilight-land of Alfheim.

The group in front of the ship had parted a little, to give room to Bruce, who was bent double. A laugh cracked through the air like a whip. Natasha had a brief moment to note the little cluster of Asgardians in the doorway — a woman positively gleaming in white armor and a man in black just behind her shoulder, hastily retreating — before the Hulk surged up the gangplank, roaring, _"Friend!"_

Rhodey was grinning from ear to ear. Beside him, in his battered red armor, Tony Stark shook his head and said, "The hell am I, chopped liver?" He turned in their direction. Saw Steve. Frowned.

Somewhere in the vicinity of Natasha's chest came a feeling like something she'd had too tight a hold on finally cracking.

Her legs moved without thought, walking forward. She didn't stop until she hit him, until her arms were around him and she could feel the soft hum of the arc reactor against her cheek, glowing behind her closed eyes like it was the sun shining on her face.

"Hey," Tony said, soft and uncertain. There was the slightest of awkward pauses before he hugged her, lightly because the Iron Man armor was not built for gentleness. "It's okay," he said, to the top of her head like it was just for her, "It's gonna be okay. We're gonna fix this." He moved to look at someone over her shoulder, and she knew it was Steve.

"We're gonna fix this," Tony said again, louder, decisively. To all of them, now. "If this can be done, it can be _un_ done. We're gonna figure it out. We're gonna fix it. It's not over yet."

And, God, she hadn't realized. She hadn't realized how badly she'd needed to hear that, how she'd been waiting for it. In the end, that was what Tony Stark _did._ As much as Natasha was always the spy, he was always the mechanic. He fixed things, and without him everything had stayed broken.

"It's good to have you back," Steve said, painfully earnest.

"Yeah, well," said Tony. "Maybe save judgment on that until after you find out who I brought with me."

Standing back, Natasha's eyes drifted after the glance Tony threw over his shoulder. On the Commodore's gangplank, a woman — blue, bald, and at least as much machine as flesh — was talking quietly to Rocket. Natasha couldn't hear what they were saying, but she could read the bad news in the slump of the raccoon's shoulders and the droop of his ears.

"Shit," said Clint. He was looking up into the ship, to where the Hulk was still harassing the Asgardians.

Tony said, dryly, "Yeah."

o

Thor was sitting where they'd left him when they came back to the room.

"Have they gone?" he asked. He didn't look up. The drink in his hands was still untouched.

A beat of silence, and then, "Do you want us to go?"

Thor's breath hitched like someone had put a knife in his ribs. Or like someone had put a thousand there, over as many years, and he was feeling every single one of them at once. It took another thousand years, it seemed, for him to rise from his seat, and only an instant for the glass in his hands to hit the ground like he'd forgotten it existed.

Thor had been right, Natasha thought. She could see it in the way he tried a smile and couldn't manage it. In the way he held himself, like if Thor moved wrong he might flee. In the way he hesitated.

"Brother," Loki said. Uncertain.

Thor raised his arms, as if to reach for him, and that was all it took. Loki hit the thunder god so hard Thor staggered back a step.

"I knew," Loki said, wrapping his arms around Thor's shoulders and squeezing him tightly, "I knew you'd make it. I told them— they said I was mad, but I _knew_ —"

Thor buried his face in Loki's shoulder, his hands gathering fistfuls of his brother's battered cloak. When he finally drew back, it was only so he could look Loki in the face, like he needed confirmation that yes, he was still there. Really there.

Loki's hand found Thor's cheek. "You've got a new eye," he said.

Thor huffed out a little laugh. He leaned in so that his forehead touched his brother's. "And you're right on time," he replied.

They pulled each other close again, and this time they didn't let go for a long, long time.

* * *

o

O

o

* * *

 _I know I took my time with this last chapter, but I hope it was worth the wait._

 _I know this ending will disappoint some people; there were commenters that said they thought it would be more meaningful if Loki stayed dead, and that's a fair point. If you want to pretend that this fic ends right after Steve welcomes Tony home, that's totally reasonable. That's where Natasha's part of this story was leading up to, I think. Getting the whole family back together, being complete again, realizing that they haven't lost everything. That there's still hope._

 _When I started this fic, I knew I wanted Loki to be alive. I waffled a little! I worried that maybe such an ending wouldn't feel genuine to a story which is, at its heart, about coming to terms with loss. But after all's said and done... that's the ending that I needed, so that's what I wrote._

 _Thanks for reading!_


	5. epilogue

All at once, life returned to the Avengers, like waking after a long nightmare. The transition back into action was instantaneous. They had rested enough, grieved enough.

They sat and stood in loose clusters around a big table in the Commodore, putting plans together. There was talk of quantum mechanics, magic, vengeance. There were missions, finally. Things they needed. People they needed.

Night fell before they started taking any real breaks. Natasha — who had not slept the night before, thank you very much — had started to doze in her seat at the back of the room during some kind of argument.

The group had scattered a little when she woke. The Valkyrie was sitting on the table talking to Rhodey and Bruce. (It ought to make her jealous, Natasha thought — that comfortable closeness between them. It didn't.) On the other side of the room, the blue woman (Nebula, daughter of Thanos) was sharpening a sword while Rocket tinkered with a gun, with much the same sort of eager-to-kill-someone energy. Thor had put his head down on the table and was snoring softly. The soothing sound of Stark and Rogers bickering could be heard from another room.

 _Family_ , Thor had called them.

o

The Commodore wasn't a big ship. She found the door outside easily enough, and Clint was right in the doorway where she expected him to be. He had never functioned well in an enclosed space. His posture was tense; it made her slow her approach, sent a prickle of unease up her spine. _Danger_.

The cause was immediately obvious.

Loki leaned casually against the door frame opposite Clint, regarding him with feigned disinterest. Clint scowled back. They stood that way for several minutes, neither moving. Natasha held herself back and quietly observed, and wondered which one she'd have to stun.

Then Clint said to Loki, "You look better."

He did, Natasha thought. She remembered seeing him for the first time on the Project PEGASUS security footage, looking battered and malevolent. There was none of the _hunger_ that had been so characteristic of him before. His features were sharp but not gaunt, eyes keen but not mad.

"I _am_ better," Loki replied, with a nod, like it was a promise.

Clint seemed satisfied with this. He looked over at her like he'd known she was there the whole time. (Which he had, of course; Loki, by his expression, had not. _Snuck up on you again_ , Natasha thought.) "Thinkin' about pizza," he said. "You hungry?"

"Starved," she said. "I think everyone is. Do they _have_ pizza here?"

"Of course they have pizza here, they have the internet." Which followed, in a weird way. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and walked off down the gangplank without sparing Loki another look.

Natasha pretended not to be examining Loki, who in turn pretended not to notice.

"For a minute there, I thought we were gonna have a fight," she said.

"The reception thus far _has_ been surprisingly nonviolent, hasn't it?"

"Thor's painted you in a pretty sympathetic light," she said. "That probably has something to do with it."

He flashed her a smile that went straight to his eyes. "Now _that_ won't do. I can't have you people thinking well of me, I have a reputation to maintain," he said, and chuckled. "Worry not. He'll be back to wanting to throttle me in no time." No sooner had he said the words than he winced, and rubbed at his neck.

 _The sun will shine on us again._ For some reason, she couldn't imagine him saying the words. Her sharpest memories of him were still of the interrogation in the Helicarrier.

 _The sun will shine on us again._ She wanted to tell him how those words had helped get her through the last few weeks.

"I'm glad you made it," he said. A little peace offering for her. "I always liked you." There was something smug about that.

She raised her eyebrows. "That's not quite the impression I got."

"To be fair, I don't think I've ever liked anyone who didn't try to kill me at some point." She could see that.

"I was thinking more about you calling me—"

 _"Ah..."_ Awkward. A moment after she'd given up on that conversation and started looking for where Clint had headed, he said, "I was angry." It wasn't quite an apology.

"I guess you had a lot more to be angry about than we knew." It wasn't quite forgiveness.

Loki shook his head, "No — I mean, I was angry at _you_." That surprised her. It must have shown on her face, because Loki said, "You said—" he got a look, like he was trying to remember, _"'Love is for children.'"_ He stopped there, and looked away, but something flickered over his face. A fathoms-deep frustration she'd seen the ghost of before, when Thor was angry at them in a way only a god could be, when he called them things like _small_ and _petty_.

 _What could you know?_ It said. You _little_ thing, you mortal. What could you know of _anything_ , with your mayfly life?

Love is for children.

What _had_ she known of love? An assassin, a spy, still counting up deeds in an imaginary ledger and telling herself that things like friendship and kindness could be measured and weighed and quantified. What had she known of love, then? Nothing, really.

Natasha remembered looking out into the sky from Sokovia as it rose into the air, and choosing to stay. She'd known, then.

None of this was anything that she could say to Loki, who seemed to have gotten lost in some thought and forgotten her anyway. But Clint was loitering not quite on the street, lingering to make small-talk with some of the dora milaje. She jogged to his side, ducked under his elbow, and slid her arm around his waist.

"It's gonna be okay," she said to him.

He squeezed her to him and nodded. For the first time, he looked like he might believe it.

* * *

 _Author's Note:_

 _This story now has a sequel of sorts: **For The Hope of Morning**_

 _...did I write an entire epilogue just so I could let people who were reading this fic know there's a sequel?_

 _Yes. Yes I did._


End file.
